


Of Flight and Fantasies

by Legendaerie



Series: Spell It Out [3]
Category: Red vs. Blue
Genre: Alternate Universe - Hogwarts, F/M, Implied Eye Injury, Improper Recovery Techniques, Injury Recovery, Permanent Injury, implied PTSD
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-07
Updated: 2016-03-07
Packaged: 2018-05-25 08:36:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,127
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6187678
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Legendaerie/pseuds/Legendaerie
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He's come a long way since he first started school. But that also means he's got a long, long way to fall.</p><p>(set around sixth year)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Of Flight and Fantasies

**Author's Note:**

> Set immediately after [Of Scarves and New Scars](http://archiveofourown.org/works/5859658). Been working on this one for a while, but it's my birthday so I finished this up as a gift to myself.
> 
> (Same, York. Same.)

York is persistent. Sometimes, rather forcibly so; when a chorus of voices tell him _no you can't_ , his instinct is to square his shoulders and plow forward with the insistence of _yes I can_. It's this optimism that keeps his grades and spirits so unusually high, at least according to the ever-candid "Doc" Dufresne. York doesn’t necessarily agree with this - for example, he knows he'll never make it back on the Hufflepuff team now that Georgia got his Firebolt - but he does like to think of himself as determined.

It’s a better term than pigheaded, at least.

So he walks down to the pitch at dusk armed with determination the evening after he was let out of the Infirmary, stumbling once or twice across the uneven ground. The patch over his left eye is a gentle pressure, a comforting weight like a blanket at night, but he has to bite the meat of his tongue to stop his teeth from grinding nervously. The specialist from Morocco said he'd get used to the loss of depth perception in time. With a cool, condescending tone as if he was just having to get used to his bedroom being painted a different color.

He jerks the doors of the Hufflepuff broom shed open and looks around, expecting to borrow Doc’s broom. To his utter surprise, someone has repaired his weathered old Nimbus - there's a note attached to the rough, sun-bleached-silver stick.

_“So you don't borrow someone else's.”_

_\--CT_

York can’t help but smile at that. He’ll have to give Connie a massive hug when he sees her next in Herbology - which she will hate and probably elbow him in the kidneys over, but she'll get the message. In the meantime, however, he’s got mere minutes left of sunlight and the sooner he's in the air, the better. 

It takes a couple tries for the broom to fly into his hand, as though the Nimbus doesn't think flying in the dark with only one eye is a good idea. Eventually, the handle hits his palm with a familiar and reassuring smack, and he straddles the broom carefully. He rises a couple inches from the ground and finds himself leaning forward precariously, trying to gauge the distance. And then he loses his balance and slips to the ground, barely avoiding a mouthful of turf.

Picking himself back up again, the side of his robes faintly cool from the damp of the grass, York tries again.  This time he jerks up too fast, but stays upright, hands gripping the handle of the broom white-knuckle tight. The broom shudders beneath him, twitching around as though it's fighting him, wriggling like a live fish. York closes his eyes and forces himself to breathe calmly, to think.

Usually, when he flies, it's simple; he molds his will to the broom and simply thinks about where to go. But he's having trouble telling exactly where he is in space, which is making this whole business very hard. Not impossible, however, just... hard. York bites the tip of his tongue, blocks the specialist's distant and clinical voice from his head, and raises off the ground once more. Bracing himself, he rips the bandaged patch off his eye. The cool air stings on his raw, humid skin, and he feels the slight resistance of scar tissue when he blinks. But he can still kind of see out of it, and it helps.

York steadies both his breath and his broom and raises higher in the sky, glides carefully forward in a straight line. His fingers are cold, locked in a death grip around the long wooden handle, but he’s in the air again. He leans forward, coaxing his broom to move faster, and pulls a little higher in the evening sky, just enough to clear the tops of the bleachers on the pitch. It really is a beautiful night for flying - the stars are already out, glittering in the east as the last stains of orange sunlight retreat behind the horizon.

He swoops into a short dive that only wobbles a little when he pulls out of it and starts to fly in careful circuits, all too familiar with the terrain and only catching the toe of his shoe on the ground once. York holds out one hand as he passes a goal hoop, fingers skimming the edge of the smooth ring, then he circles back and approaches the hoop faster. He still mistimes his mock throw and catches his wrist on the hoop painfully, and York shakes out the worst of the sting.

He can still do this. He just has to try harder.

York loops around the pitch again, the broom still wobbling with trepidation between his knees as he climbs high into the sky, preparing to swoop down between two of the goal posts. But something blurs past him on his bad side, a dark smudge of movement, and York jerks violently to the side with his heart in his throat.

Unfortunately, his broom doesn’t move with him. He pitches to the side, his fear compounding and twisting into panic when he realizes he’s falling. And then everything seems to just shut down, and he’s only distantly aware of the broom slipping out of his limp grip as he rushes towards the earth. He knows what’s going to happen when he hits the ground - it happened just three days ago - but he can’t do anything. Just like he couldn’t then. Just like the specialist couldn’t.  He’s paralyzed, without even enough air in his lungs to scream, and--

“Arresto Momentum!”

The jerk of coming to a stop is enough of a shock that York gasps, eyes snapping back open to stare at the distant, impartial sky. He’s still too slow to catch his broom, however, and he just jerks his head to the side as it catches his shoulder lightly on its way to the ground. York follows suit a moment later, hitting the turf gently as a girl with flame-red hair storms down on him.

He honestly tries to sit up, but his body won’t let him; still shaking violently in a way that he really hopes only looks like he’s cold. York turns his head to face Carolina as she approaches, noting the wand held tight in her grip and the Slytherin scarf billowing behind her.

“What were you thinking?” She snaps when she reaches him, and her anger is so blessedly different than the last time he was laid out on the pitch that York almost manages to laugh.

“Hi,” is all he manages, still feeling like he only exists in his fingertips. Still feeling cold and out of place and terrified. Carolina crosses her arms and looks at him for just a second too long, her stern expression faltering, and he has to look away. Has to sit up, make a show of rubbing his shoulder from where he fell onto his broom. “Thanks for that.”

“York,” she says, and he still does love the way she says his name even when she’s mad at him. He lets the edge of his smile pinch the corner of his mouth as he rests his elbows on his knees and tries to see if they’ll support his weight. Nope, not yet. “What are you doing?”

“Well, I _was_ flying,” he deflects, gripping his forearms to hide how his hands are still shaking. He’s okay. Nothing’s broken or bleeding this time. He has to keep telling himself that, and it'll be true.

“You were _falling_.”

“A known side effect.”

“York,” Carolina says again. He still can’t look at her, so he reaches back and checks his broom. None the worse for wear. Good, he’d hate to have to face Connie and tell her that he-- “look at me.”

“Why?” he asks, then adds nonsensically, “don’t I do enough of that already?”

She kneels in front of him and grabs his chin with one cool hand, and York’s overworked heart somehow manages to find a way to beat even faster. A hot blush floods his cheeks and he bites the inside of his lip discreetly as his world narrows down to her touch on his jaw, his cheek. He couldn’t have pulled away even if his body was listening to him.

“Lumos,” she whispered, and the bright white glow stings before he squeezes his eyes shut and pulls away. York finds his feet at last, taking two steps back and breaking out of Carolina’s touch even though it’s the last thing he wants to do, and he picks up his broom.

“It’s not that bad,” he finds himself pleading. “I can still see a little bit out of it. And I was flying just fine, so.” His hands are starting to sweat, so he wipes them off on his robes, watches Carolina watch how his hands are shaking and no, he can’t let her see this. He can’t let himself slip around her, not again, because then he won’t stand a chance as her anything. “Anyway. I, um.”

“Do your parents know?” is all she asks, careful and cool as York feels like he’s falling to pieces.

“My mom, um, I haven’t told her yet. Because it’s not that bad, and if it was bad-- I mean, her boyfriend already doesn’t like the fact that I go to a private boarding school. He thinks it’s too expensive.” He doesn’t like York’s mother spending money on anyone but himself, actually. “So I’m really glad that it’s not as. As bad as it could be. Because otherwise I might not be able to go to school here anymore.”

It’s not a lie. York knows he’s a terrible liar. Always adds too many details and can never learn when to stop talking and shut up, ever. It’s just his own brand of stubborn, aggressive optimism purely because if all of those things weren’t true, he’s not sure he’d be able to go on. If he lost all of this; the myriad of stars, the wild wind that tugs at his robes, the distant glow of the school and Carolina.

If she’s still looking at him, he doesn’t know. He can’t tear his eyes from the turf, where a short distance away the grass has recently been torn up, exposing the earth like an open wound.

At last, Carolina steps into his line of sight again, invading his personal space with ease even though she has to know what it does to him when she’s close like this, has to see him swallow and fight to stay perfectly still. But she just unwinds her scarf and he thinks he sees her wearing the ghost of a smile in the twilight.

“It’s too dark to fly tonight,” she explains, in the same tone of voice she uses when she quizzes him on homework. It’s almost as warm as the garment she’s draping across his neck, fingertips skimming across his skin like tiny comets of sensation, brilliant and fleeting. “I’ve got a couple free periods before lunch tomorrow, if you want to practice when the owls aren’t heading out to hunt.”

“Owls?” he croaks as Carolina ties the scarf neatly and steps back.

“That’s what flew past you, just before you fell.”

York swallows hard. “Oh.” An owl. Just an owl caused him to panic and nearly fall to his death. It's almost enough to make him laugh, if he’s not concerned that he might start crying instead. It's been a very interesting night.

Carolina’s head tilts back fractionally to look at him, and he realizes abruptly that he’s finally catching up with her height. “Come on. You’re gonna miss dinner.”

And of course he follows her off the pitch, burying his nose in her scarf and inhaling warm air that smells distinctly of herbs and peppermint. He’d follow her anywhere.

“Thank you,” he finally manages as he’s shoving his broom back into the Hufflepuff shed. “For the-- the scarf,” he clarifies. It rather feels like they’re playing the same game, dancing around the subject with knowing smiles. A familiar game, really, just about a new topic this time.

“Well, I still have yours. So you can hold onto mine until I get yours back to you.”

“I see.” He locks the shed with a flick of his wand, and catches himself as he stumbles again on the grass. Carolina wordlessly holds out her elbow, and York stares at her for a moment, mind still slow with thoughts of loss and lonely summers at home. And then it really feels like dancing as her meaning clicks. He accepts her offered arm and lets her guide him across the lawns, and even with everything that’s happened, he's sure his feet barely touch the ground.

 


End file.
